The Recluse Report - July/August

8 August, 2025. 1,925 words.

Sorry everyone. I’m still here, just very late.

First let’s see what I wrote somewhere around the 24th of July, back when I thought I would still be on time:

Before the second infusion

I’m actually feeling decent for a change.

I still have a runny nose lingering from the cold I had at the beginning of the month, and my lower back is still pretty sore from when I hurt it coughing from the cold at the beginning of the month, but otherwise I feel okay.

I was told about a recent article in the New York Times: Many Lung Cancers Are Now in Nonsmokers. Scientists Want to Know Why. (Sorry, paywall.) I would love to know why myself.

If you have the ability to read that article, it’s describing my exact situation. I was somewhat reassured to note that one of the subjects of the article was diagnosed with stage IV non-smoker lung cancer out of the blue in 2019, just like I was last month, and is still around to talk about it.

The thinking used to be that smoking was “almost the only cause of lung cancer,” said Dr. Maria Teresa Landi, a senior investigator at the National Cancer Institute, which is part of the National Institutes of Health. But worldwide, roughly 10 to 25 percent of lung cancers now occur in people who have never smoked. Among certain groups of Asian and Asian American women, that share is estimated to be 50 percent or more.

My advice is if you notice unusual shortness of breath after any kind of physcial activity, get a chest x-ray, even if you have to pay for it yourself. Don’t just say “oh, I’m getting older and out of shape,” like I did. You might be, but it’s also pretty much the only sign of lung cancer. Certainly the only one I noticed.

I often think “what did I do wrong” to have missed the fact that I developed lung cancer, and the answer is, nothing. My mother died from lung cancer, but she was a smoker. Like the article says, I had no reason to think I was at a higher risk for lung cancer because the general vibe was that only smokers got lung cancer and I’ve never smoked once.

Radiation Study

I can report that I’ve been accepted into a nation-wide study for cancers like mine. In brief, it means I’ll be getting preventative radiation treatment on one specific area of metastatis (the femur neck) instead of the current medical standard, which is to wait for symptoms to develop, then get radiation treatment. They are looking to study which has better results long-term. I haven’t been officially notified by anyone, but since they are preparing me for radiation, I have to assume I was picked to be in the half of the study group to receive preventative radiation.

Did I mention before that I have three areas of bone metastasis? Probably not. Yeah it’s a mess inside my body. Lung cancer doesn’t stay in one place. Two vertabrae, and the left femur neck. Relatively small spots, and assymptamatic as far as I can tell, but it’s enough to show up on a PET scan and enough to want to get rid of it. The daily pill I’m taking should also affect those spots, assuming the cancer has the same genetic origin.

Finding Ways To Be Grateful

I was getting some blood work done last Thursday to check how my white blood cell count is doing at the end of a three-week chemotherapy cycle, because I was getting a root canal on Friday. (Part of my effort to hurry up and get everything else off my plate so I can focus just on the cancer thing.) Lower white blood cell count means increased risk of infection, and mine is, as it turns out, still a bit low. So my oncologist called in an antibiotic prescription which I’ll be taking as a precaution before and after the root canal, and they’ll also do some kind of booster at my next infusion, which is next week.

The point of that is, while I was at the place where everyone with cancer comes to get their bloodwork and chemotherapy, I was able to look around at everyone else in the waiting room again. Many of them, much like me, look like completely ordinary people that you would never guess are getting treatments for cancer. The number of elderly folks in wheelchairs with some kind of oxygen, the stereotypical cancer patient, were a vanishingly small minority.

I do see a few here and there, though, and I found myself feeling thankful to be in my situation instead of theirs.

It’s an odd situation to be thankful for having cancer, but I don’t really want to be a person who wallows in self-pity. I feel like it’s fairly important to find things to be grateful for, now more than ever. I’m reminded of my mother’s lung cancer experience. I don’t remember very many details, but I remember her remaining fairly upbeat through most of it, and I don’t ever remember her projecting any kind of need for sympathy, at least around me. I have in the past and still do find it inspiring.

Death Stranding 2

Something else I’m struggling with at the moment is feeling like cancer defines the entirety of my existence. Like I should greet every new person by saying, “Hi, I have cancer.” Like it’s the only thing anyone needs to know about me.

It’s hard to remember that I have hobbies and I had a life, pre-diagnosis. In all the chaos of the first month, every bit of that disappeared. I need to proactively try to claw that stuff back into my life. In fact, I’m going to start as I’m typing this by plugging in my PS5 again and getting Death Stranding 2.

And now I can report that I’ve played a handful of hours on the PS5.

It’s a beautiful game, just like the first one, only better. It’s largely a continuation of the same mechanics as the first game. What it’s lacking is the powerfully mysterious and engaging opening story hooks that the first game had. This one just kind of assumes you’re already hooked and gets right into the delivery mechanics after a brief “where are they now” scene.

Maybe something amazing will happen later on. I’ve only done three or four deliveries and reached the first boss fight. But right now it’s firmly in the “more of the same” category and I don’t feel the same sense of wonder I did in the first game.

After the second infusion

I hope what I wrote above is good, because I’m not re-reading it to check for errors, otherwise I’ll never post this.

Now let’s fast forward to today, August the 6th, when I remembered I was supposed to post something at the start of the month.

It turns out I was in no mood for writing.

The second chemotherapy infusion hit me a lot harder than the first one did. The first week after is the worst, but it wasn’t that bad after the first one. Not this time. I spent a goodly number of the first days of August in a brain foggy stupor, and nausea hit me much more than the first round, and I had my first incident of throwing up from chemotherapy. Fun, fun.

Of course, naturally, with my tremendous luck, I wrenched my lower back again throwing up. So back to square one there. And by the way, I can’t take ibuprofen or NSAIDs during chemotherapy, so no anti-inflammatories. Just stretches and Tylenol, which only masks the pain for a brief while.

The thing about chemotherapy is that it really messes up your GI tract. Mine, at least.

First of all, everything tastes different. Water–the thing I’m supposed to be chugging all day every day to stay hydrated–tastes absolutely awful. It has a horrible chemical, metallic taste, which is not conducive to hydration. I have to mix in a variety of drink powders (they break down into Gaterade-type stuff, or lemonade-type stuff, or tea-type stuff… things like that) to make it tolerable. The drink powders also don’t taste that great.

And everything I ate for a while made me feel queasy, which is not conducive for eating properly. I have an assortment of anti-nausea pills I can take. I’ve been taking one of them almost exactly every six hours just in case, whether I feel nauseous or not. This past weekend, my main food was bread dipped in broth and crackers. Which, incidentally, also don’t taste great.

Anyway it’s been a challenging start to August.

Other Stuff Going On

As of yesterday afternoon and evening I started to feel better, and was able to get more food in me. I boldly challenged fate and ordered some pasta from DoorDash and when I woke up this morning I felt better than I have in a while.

Of course I immediately hurt my back when I was trying to move some stuff around.

You see, other stuff is going on in my life.

I have a mold remediation and roof work scheduled for later this month, part of the big overarching project to get every dangling chore off my plate except cancer.

Preparing for that involves a lot of decluttering. I had rented a dumpster, which was in my driveway for a little over a week, which I completely filled with excess clutter from my house.

I bought a new car, too. Did I mention that already? I can’t remember what I’ve written and what I haven’t. Anyway I needed a reliable car that wasn’t going to break down on the way to every chemotherapy appointment. It’s a Honda CR-V Hybrid. It’s the most luxurious car I’ve ever owned. It’s basically like driving a big computer.

Blaugust

And now let’s fast-forward again to today, August 8th, when I remembered that I had started to try to get this posted two days ago.

I’m feeling better, incidentally. (Except for my back, which persistently hobbles me.) I think I’m over most of the first-week-after-infusion blues. I have an insatiable urge to stuff my face with food almost all day, which is a pleasant change.

Blaugust is what I wanted to mention. I was aware that a Blaugust was taking place, but it’s far outside the scope of my reality at the moment. I haven’t even opened Discord in months, and I haven’t had much of a chance to catch up on what people are writing, but I did happen to notice Naithin’s post Blaugust in a Post-Comment-Box World, which made me chuckle, because it sounded like something I’ve written and struggled with before.

It’s very clear to me that static or static-ish sites are the future of blogging. In fact, they’re more like the present of blogging. Or at least, web sites. But yeah, comments by default are antithetical to static web sites, and it’s a rather large barrier when moving from a WordPress-style blog to a static-style blog. Technologically speaking, I think blog comments are a relic of the past, like rotary telephones, and there comes a point where you just can’t realistically support them any more. But a lot of people don’t think that. Thus the eternal debate continues.

Anyway I’m going to stop writing now, and not scroll up, and just publish this as-is, so at least people will know I’m not dead. Just lazy.